The Tiger and the Ruby: A Journey to the Other Side of British India

By Kief Hillsbery

Oneworld, 288 pages, £15.99

Almost every family historian has an ancestor who seems to have vanished. Often this disappearance occurred overseas, colouring our imaginations with thoughts of faraway adventures. For Kief Hillsbery, an American whose mother came from Coventry, the quest to find the final resting place of his mother’s grandfather’s great-uncle Nigel becomes personal in a way he could not have anticipated.

After reading Nigel’s surviving letters to his English family, Hillsbery travels to Herat, Lahore, Patna, Kolkata, Dhaka and Kathmandu in an attempt to discover the truth. What he finds is a story of an East India Company clerk whose experiences provide surprising revelations into colonial life.

A teacher of creative writing at Columbia University, Hillsberry’s literary expertise is evident throughout this absorbing tale of an Englishman who becomes captivated by a world different and more welcoming than the one he left.

The Tiger and the Ruby reads like a novel but its details of historical research and visits to ancestral residences, along with a unique take on the social history of British India, should appeal to family historians with ancestry in the region, as well as anyone searching for lost ancestors.

Emma Jolly is a genealogist, historian and writer